Someone Likes Us!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Yes, loyal S&P'ers, it's just a blurry, poorly lit, nearly useless preview of seven of my nine (nine now, unreal) animatronic figures as I hooked them up last night.

The Raven.

Oh! did I have a scary moment with the Raven yesterday/night. While building him way back, I had forgotten to bolt something onto something else before continuing assembly, and the results of that poor hook-up became readily apparent as I began to run everything.

The big scare was that in order to get to that unbolted bolt, um, bolted... an entire deconstruction of his head was needed.

Seriously, I was scared. Lots of little parts and feathers and connections and things go wrong so easily when it's after midnight and you can't just pop down to the hobby store for that one little stupid thing you just broke.

But I will not be beaten. The Raven absolutely lives, and lives even better than he was before (at least on the inside, and isn't that what really counts for us all?)!

The Lean Bros. & Ghoul.

Cap'n Jack Lantern & First Mate Ficketts.

Oh right, the Raven again. Nice shadow, Raven!

There was a nice moment of discovery after I fixed that silly Bird, too.

You see, having so many figures to power up on that one side of the yard, I have long wanted to run their many, many servos from a single 5V supply. I'd purchased a nice, heavy-duty 20A supply from a surplus shop three years ago for this very purpose:

(Not a picture of my supply, but it is identical in make, model and rating. Just, y'know, if you were wondering.)

-- but no matter how I tried to hook it up to anything, I never got any juice out of it. I kept trying once in a while, and eventually gave it up for dead. It only cost me a few bucks anyway, and the parts would be worth more than that.

Then I tried one little jumper hook-up I hadn't considered until recently, and now, voila! 5 Volts and 20 beefy Amps to run a few dozen servos! For nothing (well, less than $8)!

So now, every figure pictured in this post will be run by a single power supply! Hurray for less wiring!

After I begin programming this week, I'll have some video of how they all get along together.

I say 'some' because I have a lot of friends and family who visit the Skull & Pumpkin and will be visiting our yard over Hallowe'en weekend and I don't want to give too much away.

Yes, you are right -- they should exercise some self-control and not visit the S&P until then, but you have to admit it's a little too tempting.

There's plenty more to come.

Including more Poefixins™ -- we have to have something for the big scare, right?

I WILL have video, Mr. Macabre. It will likely be posted *after* Oct. 31st, but there WILL be video!And your majesty, I will build you a Raven if you will furnish me a good ghost projector for next Hallowe'en! LOVE your projection tech!!!